Dera.
Was I ready for this? Yes. Okay. Maybe not excited about it, but in the end, how I felt didn't matter. What mattered was that this was happening, and it was happening now.
The mirror had never had much appeal to me. But in that moment, its gaze was the thing I needed the most. The woman who stared back at me was called Scarlett, but in a few hours, she would cease to exist.
At least to the rest of the world, she would.
In the last moments before I had my identity erased, the mirror helped me take images, storing them in my fragile memory for as much eternity as I hoped.
Isabella’s stylist, a woman named Marissa, circled me like a hawk, running her fingers through my long dark curls with an expert’s eye.
“We’ll cut it,” she announced. “Short, chic, with layers. And we’
